Abstract
The spelling of many disyllabic English word endings holds cues to their grammatical category, beyond obvious inflectional endings such as -ing for verbs. For example, some letter sequences are clearly associated with nouns (e.g., -oon) and others with verbs (e.g., -erge). This study extended recent research by Arciuli and Cupples (2006), and confirmed that skilled adult readers are sensitive to these orthographic cues. It was found that adults were more likely to treat pseudowords as nouns when they had noun-like endings than verb-like or control endings, and more likely to treat pseudowords as verbs when they had verb-like than noun-like endings. This sensitivity held across three tasks (sentence construction, sentence judgement, and pseudoword judgement), which required increasingly explicit awareness of the way that cues could allow grammatical categorisation. In some tasks sensitivity to verb-like endings was related to reading ability, although not to spelling ability or grammatical awareness. Implications for our understanding of language processing are discussed.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arciuli, J., & Cupples, L. (2003). Effects of stress typicality during speeded grammatical classification. Language and Speech, 46, 353–374.
Arciuli, J., & Cupples, L. (2004). The effects of stress typicality during spoken word recognition by native and non-native speakers: Evidence from onset-gating. Memory and Cognition, 32, 21–30.
Arciuli, J., & Cupples, L. (2006). The processing of lexical stress during visual word recognition: Typicality effects and orthographic correlates. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 59, 920–948.
Arciuli, J., & Cupples, L. (2007). Would you rather ‘embert a cudsert’ or ‘cudsert an embert’? How spelling patterns at the beginning of English disyllables can cue grammatical category. In A. Schalley & D. Khlentzos (Eds.), Mental states: Language and cognitive structure (pp. 213–237).
Arciuli, J., & Monaghan, P. (2006). Hidden cues to grammatical category in the spelling of English disyllables The 15th Australian Language and Speech Conference. Australian Journal of Psychology, 58, 1–13.
Arciuli, J., & Slowiaczek, L. (2007). The where and when of linguistic word level prosody. Neuropsychologia, 45, 2638–2642.
Arévalo, A., Perani, D., Cappa, S. F., Butler, A., Bates, E., & Dronkers, N. (2007). Action and object processing in aphasia: From nouns and verbs to the effect of manipulability. Brain and Language, 100, 79–94.
Baayen, R. H., Piepenbrock, R., & Gulikers, L. (1995). The CELEX Lexical Database (CD-ROM). Linguistic Data Consortium. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania.
Baker, R. G., & Smith, P. T. (1976). A psycholinguistic study of English stress assignment rules. Language and Speech, 19, 9–17.
Black, M., & Chiat, S. (2003). Noun-verb dissociations: A multi-faceted phenomenon. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 16, 231–250.
Boland, J. E. (1997). Resolving syntactic category ambiguities in discourse context: Probabilistic and discourse constraints. Journal of Memory and Language, 36, 588–615.
Carlisle, J. F. (1995). Morphological awareness and early reading achievement. In L. B. Feldman (Ed.), Morphological aspects of language processing (pp. 189–209). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Cassar, M., & Treiman, R. (1997). The beginnings of orthographic knowledge: Children’s knowledge of double letters in words. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 631–644.
Cassidy, K. W., & Kelly, M. (1991). Phonological information for grammatical category assignments. Journal of Memory and Language, 30, 348–369.
Cassidy, K. W., & Kelly, M. (2001). Children’s use of phonology to infer grammatical class in vocabulary learning. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Journal, 8, 519–523.
Cazden, C. B. (1976). Play with language and metalinguistic awareness: One dimension of language experience. In J. S. Bruner, A. Jolly, & K. Sylva (Eds.), Play: Its role in development and evolution (pp. 603–608). New York: Basic Books.
D’Amico, S., Bentrovato, S., Gasparini, M., Costabile, D., & Bates, E. (2002). Timed picture-naming in Italian-speaking children and adults: Differences between nouns and verbs. Paper Presented at IASCL-SRCLD, Madison, WI.
Davis, S. M., & Kelly, M. (1997). Knowledge of the English noun-verb stress difference by native and nonnative speakers. Journal of Memory and Language, 36, 445–460.
Durieux, G., & Gillis, S. (2001). Predicting grammatical classes from phonological cues: An empirical test. In J. Weissenborn & B. Höhle (Eds.), Approaches to bootstrapping: Phonological, lexical, syntactic and neurophysiological aspects of early language acquisition (Vol. 1, pp. 189–229). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Farmer, T. A., Christiansen, M. H., & Monaghan, P. (2006). Phonological typicality influences lexical processing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103, 12203–12208.
Fay, D., & Cutler, A. (1977). Malapropisms and the structure of the mental lexicon. Linguistic Inquiry, 8, 505–520.
Fudge, E. (1984). English word stress. London: Allen & Unwin.
Gleitman, L. R., Gleitman, H., Landau, B., & Wanner, E. (1988). Where learning begins: Initial representations for language learning. In F. J. Newmeyer (Ed.), Linguistics: The Cambridge survey (Vol. 3, pp. 150–193). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gombert, J. E. (1992). Metalinguistic development. New York: Harvester.
Gentner, D. (1982). Why are nouns learned before verbs: Linguistic relativity versus natural partitioning. In S. Kuczaj II (Ed.), Language development, Vol. 2: Language, thought, and culture. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Gentner, D. (2006). Why verbs are hard to learn. In K. Hirsh-Pasek & R. M. Golinkoff (Eds.), Action meets word: How children learn verbs (pp. 544–564). New York: Oxford University Press.
Hauerwas, L. B., & Walker, J. (2003). Spelling of inflected verb morphology in children with spelling deficits. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 18, 25–35.
Jastak, S., & Wilkinson, G. S. (1993). Wide range achievement test-revised 3. Wilmington, DE: Jastak Associates.
Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1987). Function and process in comparing language and cognition. In M. Hickmann (Ed.), Social and functional approaches to language and thought (pp. 185–202). New York: Academic Press.
Kelly, M. H. (1988). Phonological biases in grammatical category shifts. Journal of Memory and Language, 27, 343–358.
Kelly, M. H. (1992). Using sound to solve syntactic problems: The role of phonology in grammatical category assignments. Psychological Review, 99, 349–364.
Kelly, M. H., & Bock, J. K. (1988). Stress in time. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 14, 389–403.
Kelly, M. H., Morris, J., & Verrekia, L. (1998). Orthographic cues to lexical stress: Effects on naming and lexical decision. Memory and Cognition, 26, 822–832.
Kemp, N., & Bryant, P. (2003). Do beez buzz? Rule-based and frequency-based knowledge in learning to spell plural -s. Child Development, 74, 63–74.
Kessler, B., & Treiman, R. (2003). Is English spelling chaotic? Misconceptions concerning its irregularity. Reading Psychology, 24, 267–289.
Kučera, H., & Francis, W. N. (1967). Computational analysis of present-day American English. Providence: Brown University Press.
Levy, Y. (1983). It’s frogs all the way down. Cognition, 15, 73–93.
MacWhinney, B. (1978). The acquisition of morphonology. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 42, Serial No. 174.
Maratsos, M. (1983). Some current issues in the study of the acquisition of grammar. In P. Mussen, J. H. Flavell, & E. M. Markman (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (Vol. 3, pp. 709–777). New York: Wiley.
Monaghan, P., Chater, N., & Christiansen, M. H. (2005). The differential contribution of phonological and distributional cues in grammatical categorization. Cognition, 96, 143–182.
Monaghan, P., Christiansen, M. H., & Chater, N. (2007). The Phonological-Distributional Coherence Hypothesis: Cross-linguistic evidence in language acquisition. Cognitive Psychology, 55(4), 259–305.
Morgan, J. L., & Demuth, K. (1996). Signal to syntax: Bootstrapping from speech to grammar in early acquisition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Morgan, J. L., Meier, R. P., & Newport, E. L. (1987). Structural packaging in the input to language learning: Contributions of prosodic and morphological marking of phrases to the acquisition of language. Cognitive Psychology, 19, 498–550.
Morgan, J. L., Shi, R., & Allopenna, P. (1996). Perceptual bases of rudimentary categories: Towards a broader conceptualization of bootstrapping. In J. L. Morgan & K. Demuth (Eds.), Signal to syntax: Bootstrapping from speech to grammar in early acquisition (pp. 263–283). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Newport, E. L., & Aslin, R. N. (2004). Learning at a distance I. Statistical learning of nonadjacent dependencies. Cognitive Psychology, 48, 127–162.
Nunes, T., Bryant, P., & Bindman, M. (1997). Morphological spelling strategies: Developmental stages and processes. Developmental Psychology, 33, 637–649.
O’Dowd, S. C. (1984). Does vocabulary decline qualitatively in old age? Educational Gerontology, 10, 357–368.
Rubin, H. (1988). Morphological knowledge and early writing ability. Language and Speech, 31, 337–355.
Saffran, J. R., Aslin, R. N., & Newport, E. L. (1996a). Statistical learning by 8-month-old infants. Science, 274, 1926–1928.
Saffran, J. R., Newport, E. L., & Aslin, R. N. (1996b). Word segmentation: The role of distributional cues. Journal of Memory and Language, 35, 606–621.
Saffran, J. R., Newport, E. L., Aslin, R. N., Tunick, R. A., & Barrueco, S. (1997). Incidental language learning: Listening (and learning) out of the corner of your ear. Psychological Science, 8, 101–195.
Schiff, R., & Raveh, M. (2007). Deficient morphological processing in adults with developmental dyslexia: Another barrier to efficient word recognition? Dyslexia, 13, 110–129.
Schiff, R., & Ravid, D. (2007). Conflicting cues in marking plural adjectives in Hebrew. Paper Presented at XIV Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading, Prague.
Shi, R., Morgan, J., & Allopenna, P. (1998). Phonological and acoustic bases for earliest grammatical category assignment: A cross-linguistic perspective. Journal of Child Language, 25, 169–201.
Smith, P. T., & Baker, R. G. (1976). The influence of English spelling patterns on pronunciation. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 15, 267–285.
Smith, P. T., Baker, R. G., & Groat, A. (1982). Spelling as a source of information about children’s linguistic knowledge. British Journal of Psychology, 73, 339–350.
Soreno, J. A., & Jongman, A. (1990). Phonological and form class relations in the lexicon. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 19, 387–404.
Treiman, R., & Zukowski, A. (1988). Units in reading and spelling. Journal of Memory and Language, 27, 466–477.
Tucker, G. R., Lambert, W. E., Rigault, A., & Segalowitz, N. (1968). A psychological investigation of French speakers’ skill with grammatical gender. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behaviour, 7, 312–316.
Valtin, R. (1984). The development of metalinguistic awareness in children learning to read and write. In J. Downing & R. Valtin (Eds.), Language awareness and learning to read (pp. 207–226). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Wilson, M. D. (1988). The MRC psycholinguistic database: Machine readable dictionary, version 2. Behavioural Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 20, 6–11.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Appendix
Appendix
Pseudoword triplets for noun, verb, and control endings
Cue | Group 1 pseudowords | Group 2 pseudowords | Group 3 pseudowords |
---|---|---|---|
Noun endings | |||
-ac | chilac | tresac | gromac |
-asm | lurdasm | torlasm | mirtasm |
-iff | borniff | darniff | kriliff |
-int | sharint | tromint | bretint |
-ion | ellion | arnion | estion |
-ior | telior | sudior | ganior |
-is | welkis | fintis | barmis |
-ium | lorium | sedium | lotium |
-oon | rintoon | sorpoon | tensoon |
-ush | stinush | pretush | sartush |
Verb endings | |||
-aim | artaim | erlaim | ursaim |
-ede | monede | telede | ramede |
-erge | sonerge | roserge | toperge |
-erve | asgerve | olverve | inderve |
-ieve | lotieve | carieve | senieve |
-oice | intoice | arnoice | olnoice |
-olve | panolve | warolve | fetolve |
-ounce | ilounce | etounce | asounce |
-act | tanact | lotact | saract |
-end | sanend | futend | torend |
Control endings | |||
-ide | tramide | prelide | droside |
-eal | sadeal | woreal | tiseal |
-old | fanold | perold | tagold |
-eat | saneat | tudeat | poleat |
-ear | tarnear | gormear | lerdear |
-ense | estense | ordense | arlense |
-ust | pitust | monust | narust |
-ate | pormate | cantate | sordate |
-en | praten | spanen | frinen |
-ert | promert | trenert | spanert |
Grammatical Awareness Task (answers in bold)
Mean percentage of participants who answered each item correctly shown in parentheses.
Practice items
-
a) Did you see her lovely scarf?/Did you see her lovely scarves?
-
Did you see his old boot?/Did you see his old boots?
-
b) He chooses his socks carefully./He chose his socks carefully.
-
He goes down the stairs quietly./He went down the stairs quietly
Verb items
-
1. The creatures cling to the rocks./The creatures clung to the rocks.
-
The creatures seek the sunlight./The creatures sought the sunlight. (69)
-
2. Bill has a tantrum every week./Bill has had a tantrum every week.
-
Bill quits his job every week./Bill has quit his job every week. (85)
-
3. Monty wore a woolly jumper./Monty wears a woolly jumper.
-
Monty bred angora rabbits. /Monty breeds angora rabbits. (91)
-
4. I have caught the early train./I catch the early train regularly.
-
I have risen at 6am./I rise at 6am regularly. (85)
-
5. You trod on my doona./You tread on my doona all the time.
-
You lay on my bed. /You lie on my bed all the time. (54)
-
6. Peter has laid the paving stones./Peter lays the paving stones.
-
Peter has striven to make them smooth./Peter strives to make them smooth. (78)
-
7. Joan catches the children peeking. /Joan caught the children peeking.
-
Joan forbids them to peek again./Joan forbade them to peek again. (45)
-
8. The critics see three films./The critics have seen three films.
-
The critics broadcast their reviews. /The critics have broadcast their reviews. (64)
Noun items
-
1. I saw the farmer’s sheaf of wheat./I saw the farmer’s sheaves of wheat.
-
I saw the cow’s latest offspring./I saw the cow’s latest offspring. (73)
-
2. Look at that wild deer./Look at those wild deer.
-
And look at that wild ox!/And look at those wild oxen! (39)
-
3. I was sure I could taste the spices./I was sure I could taste the spice.
-
I was sure I could see the lice./I was sure I could see the louse. (16)
-
4. Have you heard of this species?/Have you heard of those species?
-
Did you know about this crisis?/Did you know about these crises? (15)
-
5. I’m sure that was an owl over there./I’m sure that was an owlet over there.
-
I’m sure that was a goose over there./I’m sure that was a gosling over there. (40)
-
6. Mr Bentley sat in the kitchen./Mr Bentley sat in the kitchenette.
-
Mr Bentley pointed to the pig./Mr Bentley pointed to the piglet. (55)
-
7. The one in charge was the priest./The one in charge was the priestess.
-
The one who came was a widower./The one who came was a widow. (39)
-
8. It would take a heroine to save the day./It would take a hero to save the day.
-
It would take a sorceress to break the spell./It would take a sorcerer… (63)
Mean percentage of Noun/Verb attribution given by participants to each pseudoword, in each task type. N = 25 for each pseudoword, or N = 17 for values given in italics.
Task type | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sentence construction | Sentence judgement | Pseudoword judgement | |||||
Noun | Verb | Noun | Verb | Noun | Verb | ||
Noun-like triplets | |||||||
-ac | chilac | 64 | 24 | 92 | 8 | 77 | 23 |
tresac | 84 | 16 | 65 | 35 | 88 | 12 | |
gromac | 65 | 24 | 40 | 60 | 76 | 24 | |
-asm | lurdasm | 80 | 20 | 64 | 59 | 71 | 29 |
torlasm | 76 | 6 | 41 | 24 | 68 | 32 | |
mirtasm | 88 | 4 | 76 | 36 | 68 | 32 | |
-iff | borniff | 52 | 32 | 64 | 36 | 59 | 41 |
darniff | 40 | 36 | 65 | 35 | 64 | 36 | |
kriliff | 77 | 24 | 52 | 48 | 76 | 24 | |
-int | sharint | 60 | 32 | 64 | 36 | 65 | 35 |
tromint | 44 | 48 | 65 | 35 | 76 | 24 | |
bretint | 30 | 35 | 56 | 44 | 72 | 28 | |
-ion | ellion | 92 | 4 | 80 | 20 | 82 | 18 |
arnion | 64 | 24 | 71 | 29 | 68 | 32 | |
estion | 94 | 6 | 68 | 32 | 80 | 20 | |
-ior | telior | 64 | 24 | 72 | 28 | 76 | 24 |
sudior | 64 | 24 | 35 | 65 | 72 | 28 | |
ganior | 82 | 12 | 52 | 48 | 64 | 36 | |
-is | welkis | 76 | 16 | 76 | 24 | 71 | 29 |
fintis | 72 | 12 | 71 | 29 | 60 | 40 | |
barmis | 60 | 18 | 64 | 36 | 76 | 24 | |
-ium | lorium | 88 | 4 | 68 | 32 | 77 | 23 |
sedium | 84 | 12 | 71 | 29 | 80 | 20 | |
lotium | 94 | 6 | 64 | 36 | 76 | 24 | |
-oon | rintoon | 68 | 28 | 64 | 36 | 77 | 23 |
sorpoon | 68 | 24 | 65 | 35 | 72 | 28 | |
tensoon | 77 | 12 | 44 | 56 | 76 | 24 | |
-ush | stinush | 60 | 24 | 60 | 40 | 41 | 59 |
pretush | 56 | 36 | 71 | 29 | 40 | 60 | |
sartush | 65 | 24 | 40 | 60 | 64 | 36 | |
Verb-like triplets | |||||||
-aim | artaim | 48 | 28 | 40 | 60 | 77 | 23 |
erlaim | 60 | 32 | 77 | 23 | 52 | 48 | |
ursaim | 77 | 23 | 68 | 32 | 44 | 56 | |
-ede | monede | 84 | 12 | 48 | 52 | 24 | 76 |
telede | 48 | 40 | 47 | 53 | 48 | 52 | |
ramede | 59 | 29 | 68 | 32 | 48 | 52 | |
-erge | sonerge | 48 | 40 | 52 | 48 | 53 | 47 |
roserge | 80 | 16 | 76 | 24 | 36 | 64 | |
toperge | 82 | 18 | 36 | 64 | 20 | 80 | |
-erve | asgerve | 36 | 40 | 44 | 56 | 18 | 82 |
olverve | 36 | 52 | 53 | 47 | 24 | 76 | |
inderve | 29 | 65 | 64 | 36 | 16 | 84 | |
-ieve | lotieve | 56 | 40 | 52 | 48 | 24 | 76 |
carieve | 48 | 44 | 35 | 65 | 52 | 48 | |
senieve | 29 | 41 | 44 | 56 | 20 | 80 | |
-oice | intoice | 44 | 48 | 60 | 40 | 35 | 65 |
arnoice | 68 | 12 | 53 | 47 | 56 | 44 | |
olnoice | 53 | 18 | 52 | 48 | 28 | 72 | |
-olve | panolve | 48 | 48 | 52 | 48 | 29 | 71 |
warolve | 60 | 32 | 65 | 35 | 32 | 68 | |
fetolve | 47 | 35 | 52 | 48 | 20 | 80 | |
-ounce | ilounce | 16 | 80 | 40 | 60 | 12 | 88 |
etounce | 32 | 60 | 59 | 41 | 0 | 100 | |
asounce | 29 | 65 | 36 | 64 | 8 | 92 | |
-act | tanact | 52 | 32 | 68 | 32 | 59 | 41 |
lotact | 64 | 32 | 47 | 53 | 48 | 52 | |
saract | 58 | 24 | 52 | 48 | 64 | 36 | |
-end | sanend | 60 | 32 | 52 | 48 | 41 | 59 |
futend | 52 | 40 | 53 | 47 | 44 | 56 | |
torend | 35 | 53 | 44 | 56 | 40 | 60 | |
Control triplets | |||||||
-ide | tramide | 56 | 20 | 52 | 48 | 35 | 65 |
prelide | 36 | 56 | 82 | 18 | 60 | 40 | |
droside | 41 | 29 | 24 | 76 | 40 | 60 | |
-eal | sadeal | 60 | 20 | 64 | 36 | 53 | 47 |
woreal | 52 | 32 | 53 | 47 | 48 | 52 | |
tiseal | 47 | 35 | 56 | 44 | 72 | 28 | |
-old | fanold | 44 | 44 | 72 | 28 | 65 | 35 |
perold | 60 | 24 | 59 | 41 | 92 | 8 | |
tagold | 65 | 24 | 48 | 52 | 72 | 28 | |
-eat | saneat | 60 | 24 | 68 | 32 | 53 | 47 |
tudeat | 64 | 24 | 59 | 41 | 64 | 36 | |
poleat | 60 | 24 | 80 | 20 | 56 | 44 | |
-ear | tarnear | 68 | 20 | 60 | 40 | 82 | 18 |
gormear | 48 | 32 | 47 | 53 | 48 | 52 | |
lerdear | 60 | 29 | 40 | 60 | 56 | 44 | |
-ense | estense | 40 | 24 | 80 | 20 | 24 | 76 |
ordense | 36 | 16 | 59 | 41 | 40 | 60 | |
arlense | 65 | 24 | 52 | 48 | 36 | 64 | |
-ust | pitust | 48 | 36 | 72 | 28 | 53 | 47 |
monust | 56 | 28 | 59 | 41 | 60 | 40 | |
narust | 65 | 18 | 68 | 32 | 76 | 24 | |
-ate | pormate | 40 | 44 | 36 | 64 | 23 | 77 |
cantate | 48 | 48 | 53 | 47 | 20 | 80 | |
sordate | 41 | 53 | 32 | 68 | 28 | 72 | |
-en | praten | 52 | 32 | 52 | 48 | 71 | 29 |
spanen | 76 | 20 | 65 | 35 | 60 | 40 | |
frinen | 47 | 29 | 76 | 24 | 72 | 28 | |
-ert | promert | 32 | 40 | 60 | 40 | 47 | 53 |
trenert | 60 | 20 | 47 | 53 | 72 | 28 | |
spanert | 65 | 30 | 80 | 20 | 32 | 68 |
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kemp, N., Nilsson, J. & Arciuli, J. Noun or verb? Adult readers’ sensitivity to spelling cues to grammatical category in word endings. Read Writ 22, 661–685 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-008-9140-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-008-9140-z